Jewish women and children escaping the Nazi death train at Farsleben (read the story here)

If you’ve been paying attention to the news of late, you can’t have missed stories about anti-Semitism. For example, for many years now, France has periodically been roiled by grotesque anti-Semitic murders, including one that happened in connection with the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, in January 2015.

I mention that massacre specifically, because it was an event that lifted for Leftists American Jews, even if ever so slightly, the veil hiding the anti-Semitic rot at the heart of the Democrat Party. As you may recall, in January 2015, Islamists committed a mass murder at the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo because it had dared to mock the eminently mockable Mohamed. Two days later, a member of the same radical Islamist community entered a kosher market in Paris, took hostages, killed four people, and injured nine.

The massacre did not occur because anyone in the Hypercacher market had mocked Mohamed. No one had, of course. The only reason the Hypercacher massacre happened was because Islamist murderers always use the opportunity of a massacre to include a few Jews. Thus, when Islamists committed the exceptionally bloody Mumbai massacre, they wasted resources deviating from their central massacre just so that they could torture to death a rabbi and his wife who had a small Chabad House in Mumbai.

In a way, this Muslim massacre technique (a big massacre that includes, as a sideline, brutally killing a few Jews) is comparable to Hitler’s Holocaust: For Hitler and Germany, the primary goal was world conquest. However, just as was the case with the Islamists, Hitler’s anti-Semitism was so all-encompassing that he willingly diverted resources from the main goal to accomplish a secondary goal that was neither ancillary to nor necessary for world conquest. Indeed, it lessened the chances for world conquest, but Hitler couldn’t stop himself.

But I digress. This is not a post about rising anti-Semitism around the world. It’s just a prelude to a post about rising anti-Semitism in America and, more specifically, about the anti-Semitic rot at the heart of the Democrat Party . . . which brings me back to the purposefully anti-Semitic attack on Jews in the Hypercacher market in Paris. [Read more…]

When I read that a man screamed “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Trump,” I knew he was a Proggie, but a Proggie I know still insists the man was a Trump supporter.

Yesterday, the media was filled with stories about an outburst at a Baltimore theater. The Baltimore Sunfirst reported on the event — and please note that it immediately identifies the man as a Trump hater (emphasis mine):

A man shouting “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump” during a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Baltimore smelled of alcohol and told police he was motivated by his hatred of President Donald Trump.

Anthony M. Derlunas, 58, told an officer he “had been drinking heavily throughout the night” before the outburst at the Hippodrome Theatre on Wednesday night, according to a police report.

But before details of the police report became public in the early evening, the incident rattled many already anxious about a recent spike in anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Maryland and nationwide.

Audience member Rich Scherr said the outburst, which happened during intermission, sparked fears of a shooting like the one in a Pittsburgh synagogue last month that killed 11 people.

The man, later identified as Derlunas, had been seated in the balcony and began shouting “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump.”

What’s so fascinating about the story is that I knew instantly, without having to read the bolded language, that the man hated Trump. There were several clues. First, Neo-Nazis tend not to buy tickets costing upwards of $70 for an event at an upscale downtown historic venue. If you pay attention to the facts outside of the media narrative, you know that Neo-Nazis tend to be very angry bottom-feeding people who hang with other angry bottom-feeding people endlessly revisiting their real and imagined injuries (these two videos — one and two — are my favorite looks at the white supremacy issue). That any genuine Neo-Nazi would bother to spend the money to see Broadway’s version of a shetl just to raise a ruckus is a near zero likelihood.

The other thing that tipped me off is that the only people in America who liken Trump to Hitler are . . . Progressives. While it may be true that America’s microscopically small, sector of pathetic, low-life white supremacists throw their lot in with Trump, they do so, not because they worship him as another Hitler, but because their former home in the Democrat Party has gone away.

The Democrat Party that once was home to America’s white supremacists is still pathologically race-obsessed, but it’s switched from the old model (whites on top, everyone else on the bottom) top a new model (whites on the bottom, everyone else on the top). You could say it’s gone from being a “white lives matter” party to being a “black lives matter” party.

Evicted from their former ideological home, those foul excrescences who label themselves “white supremacists” figured out that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and latched on to the GOP. Again, they don’t worship Trump; they just have nowhere else to go.

All of this was instantly obvious to me without the necessity of the man’s confession that he hates Donald Trump. [Read more…]

It’s not losing seats that bothers me, it’s the fact that post-election counts and recounts invariably favor Democrats, which is banana republic stuff.

Post-election recounts and miscounts and discounts and God alone knows what else. I’m not actually going to blog too much about post-election recounts, despite using them as part of my post title today. The topic is just too depressing. You can kid yourself as much as you want about living in a constitutionally guided democratic republic, but if 27 of the last post-election counts and recounts miraculously favored the Democrats, if Democrats are openly registering illegal aliens, if Democrats coincidentally win in regions with more voters than residents, if the dead are walking and voting, and if many “voters” were alive during the Spanish-American War, you don’t have a constitutionally guided democratic republic; you simply have a banana republic with nice cars and XBoxes.

Look at Arizona: Either there’s voter fraud going on there or Arizona citizens willingly elected a woman who loathes them. Blech! Having said that, Ron Coleman points out that it might not have been a Democrat win so much as a shameless and unnecessary Republican loss:

Can American Jews be more stupid? When I grew up, my parents were so proud of Jewish brains. Einstein? Jewish. Hedy Lamar? Not only a Jewish brain, but gorgeous. A disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences? Jewish. Kissinger? Even if you didn’t like him, he was one smart Jew. Israel? A whole nation that’s smart and Jewish.

I attended an academic high school and, while Asian students were quickly becoming dominant in the school, we still had enough smart Jews for a joke: “If Chinese New Year and Yom Kippur fell on the same day, they’d have to close the school.”

This year, though, as in years past, Jews voted disproportionately for Democrats — 75% is what I heard. If you ask these Jews about their unswerving loyalty to the Democrat party, they’d give two reasons. First, Republicans are evil and Democrats are the party of kindness, empathy, and the lack of all nasty -isms (racism, sexism, etc.). That last, of course, would lead to the second, core Jewish vote issue: Jews insist that Republicans are the party of antisemitism and Democrats are not.

To believe that, Jews have to be stupid. Really, really stupid.

The Republicans are the pro-Israel party. The Republican president’s most beloved child is Jewish, as are her children, and she’s married to one of his chief campaign advisors. One of his closet friends is Jewish and is now ambassador to Israel. Israelis who aren’t marinated in Leftism view him as one of the most pro-Israel politicians ever. Heck, Trump finally acted on past presidents’ promises and moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. [Read more…]

The horrific shooting at the Pittsburgh Synagogue suggests that America, by being a peaceful haven for American Jewry, is actually helping to destroy it.

I haven’t commented about the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. I actually don’t think there’s much to say about the shooting itself. A rabid anti-Semite acted on his rage and did what anti-Semites have done since the Middle Ages: he killed Jews. He’ll face judgment in this life and, I’m quite sure, an infinitely worse judgment in the next. The End.

In this post, I want to blog about something else I noticed. Something everyone must have noticed: All of the congregants who died (may their memories be a blessing) were oldish to really old:

According to reports I read, Saturday morning service was always the synagogue’s busiest day each week and the shooter had 20-30 minutes alone in that room before the police finally entered. (Shades of Parkland School there….) While oldish and really old people are obviously going to be the least agile in scattering and hiding, one would think that a busy service and a gunman with a lot of time on his hands would have resulted in a broader age spectrum of victims. The fact that it didn’t suggests that Tree of Life has an aging congregation. That got me thinking.

I went and looked at the synagogue’s website and saw that it offers two slightly different descriptions of itself. Here’s the first, on the home page:

Tree of Life * Or L’Simcha Congregation is a traditional, progressive and egalitarian congregation based in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

We offer a warm and welcoming environment where even the oldest Jewish traditions become relevant to the way our members live today. From engaging services, social events, family-friendly activities and learning opportunities to support in times of illness or sorrow, we match the old with the new to deliver conservative Jewish tradition that’s accessible, warm and progressive.

Tree of Life Congregation was founded more than 150 years ago, Or L’Simcha about 5 years ago. In 2010, the two Pittsburgh congregations merged to form Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha. As a conservative Jewish congregation, Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha remains true to traditional teachings, yet is also progressive and relevant to the way we live today. From our warm, inviting and intellectually stimulating atmosphere to our fun adult, children and family programs, it’s the perfect environment to grow a strong faith rooted in tradition.

For those of you wondering about the importance of the words “conservative” and “traditional,” let me explain as best as I can. Although I was raised without a synagogue, I’m Jewish enough in orientation to have picked up a few things. [Read more…]

This is a hodge-podge about debased funerals, corrupt investigations, stupid Leftists, Hollywood hate, and other stuff to amuse and dismay the reader.

Regarding the obsequies for McCain, it’s clear that the Wellstone funeral was a warm-up. I’d like to think that ordinary Americans, rather than being moved politically by demagoguery over a dead body (demagoguery that same dead person, when alive, planned for), won’t be impressed but will be disgusted. And that’s all I have to say on the subject.

This is an appalling idea. These Senate seats belong to the American people. They are not family sinecures or heirlooms. Whatever drives Governor Ducey’s decision-making about filling that seat, it better be for the good of Arizona and the Republicans who elected McCain, and not for the good of the McCain political dynasty.

Aretha Franklin’s funeral turns into a circus. Aretha Franklin was a woman of tremendous talent who, so far as I know, always comported herself with dignity during a long life in the public eye. I wonder what she would have made of her funeral.

In the seats of honor were an antisemitic, anti-White, anti-Christian, homophobic madman and all-around hater (Farrakhan), an illiterate race hustler and antisemite (Sharpton), a somewhat literate race hustler and antisemite (Jackson), and a credibly accused rapist and serial sexual assaulter (Bill Clinton) who compulsively ogled an under-dressed entertainer in an obvious and unseemly fashion.

Bill was not alone when it came to sexually compulsive behavior. Bishop Charles Ellis III one of the pastors at the funeral seemingly spent a minute groping singer Ariana Grande (the same woman Bill ogled).

The viewing of the body revealed a raddled old harridan who claimed she had what it took to govern our nation but who is, in fact, so physically compromised she can no longer climb stairs on her own.

Giving a eulogy was a Georgetown sociology professor, Michael Eric Dyson, whose oozing Trump Derangement Syndrome suddenly gushed out in a burst of ghetto language attacking the sitting president. His verbal diarrhea was based upon that fact that Trump stated (accurately) that Franklin, whom he paid for her singing services at his hotels, “worked” for him. In Donald’s world (the real world), where talent is rewarded with well-remunerated employment, that was high praise indeed. Dyson, however, saw things in a different way: [Read more…]

The older of my two dogs is very high-strung and she got so frightened by the wind that carried the fog in tonight that I’ve had to sequester her and me in my home office so that Mr. Bookworm, who needs to get up for work tomorrow, can sleep. She shows no signs of settling, so I’m blogging.

No matter how you slice it, Trump is the less risky gamble. Writing in the Claremont Review of Books, Publius Decius Mus quite graphically presents the issue that I have been arguing all summer:

2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.

Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.

Precisely. Trump, with all his flaws, is better than Hillary. Up until a few months ago, one could argue that Hillary is just another garden-variety Leftist and that the American republic will survive despite her.

That’s all changed now. Knowing as we do of her extraordinary corruption — whether in running the State Department as a Pay-for-Play profit center for herself, her husband, and her daughter, or deliberately exposing all of America’s state secrets to try to hide her gross malfeasance — electing her to the presidency means that America has fully embraced banana republic status.

In the wake of a Hillary victory, thanks to Comey and the American voters (including all those #NeverTrumpers), there will no longer be a rule of law in America that applies equally to all citizens. We will in one fell swoop have destroyed a legal system that goes back 1215 when England first put into writing in the Magna Carta a policy saying that no one, not even a king, is above the law. As of now, Hillary and her cronies are above the law and it will be a disaster if the American people put their imprimatur on that utterly corrupt, anti-democratic principle.

One more thing: As Publius Decius Mus explains, Hillary’s been wrong about every single policy stance she’s ever taken (including the ones where she’s changed her stance repeatedly according to the latest poll data), while Trump, in his fumbling, bumbling way, has been right about all of the most important policy issues facing America. So maybe he’s not so bad after all.

Unlike most of my Bookworm Beats, in which I try to share with you as many articles and ideas as possible, this one’s going to be short. I have only three points I want to discuss, but I think all of them have so much merit, I don’t want them to get lost in a larger post. So, off we go….

Obama’s revenge against the American voter

Politico has published a quite fascinating article entitled “Operation Revenge.” The article’s central theme is that Obama not only intends to use his last two years in office to act without Congressional and constitutional restraints, but that he especially intends to exact revenge upon all those Republican Congressional figures who have stood in his way:

Obama’s turnaround in recent weeks – he’s seized the offensive with a series of controversial executive actions and challenges to leaders in his own party on the budget — can be attributed to a fundamental change in his political mindset, according to current and former aides. He’s gone from thinking of himself as a sitting (lame) duck, they tell me, to a president diving headlong into what amounts to a final campaign – this one to preserve his legacy, add policy points to the scoreboard, and – last but definitely not least – to inflict the same kind of punishment on his newly empowered Republican enemies, who delighted in tormenting him when he was on top.

Think about that for a moment: Our president intends to “inflict . . . punishment on his . . . Republican enemies.”

Neither Politico nor Obama seem to care about the reason those Republicans in the House have been so recalcitrant since 2010. These fractious men and women didn’t just magically appear in the House one day. They were there because American voters liked their promises to rein in Obama’s worst excesses.

I’m with American Crossroads, which believes that Joe Biden is just what the Democrat ticket needs:

Gravitas! (Giggle, giggle.)

I’m suspect, though, that the Democrats themselves are becoming disenchanted with Good Old Joe. Apparently they cast around for the Hillary alternative, only to get a resounding “No!” from a woman who neither wanted to be on a winning nor a losing Democrat ticket, because she thought both would be bad for her career. You can always trust the Clintons to keep their eyes on the main chance.

So who’s next? I’m voting for a “Draft Elizabeth Warren” movement.

Think about it for a moment: while the Republican party has more young guns than it can count, who does the Democrat party have? Jesse Jackson, Jr.? No. Poor guy has a bipolar disorder. I wish him well, but no one wishes him on the ticket. Rahm Emanuel? Nope. You don’t go from Chief of Staff, to Mayor of a corrupt, crime-ridden city, to second on the presidential ticket. Raddled old Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi? Big NO there. Debbie What’s-her-name Schlemeil? I think Baghdad Debbie has had her dishonest day.

Anyone? Anyone?

I didn’t think so.

The only “young” gun they’ve got is Elizabeth Warren. She’s struggling to stay above water in Massachusetts, but Democrats might see her as someone who can revive the base if she’s on the presidential ticket. After all, when it comes to “You didn’t build that,” she and Obama are two minds with but a single thought. Better an exciting candidate on the presidential ticket than a struggling candidate for a senate seat that’s already filled by a fairly popular, attractive RINO.

My best guess today is that, in a week or so, poor old Joe is going to get very sick and need to retire abruptly. And stalwart Progressive Elizabeth Warren will valiantly step up to fill Joe’s shoes.

The usual crowd of race hustlers, including Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the New Black Panthers and Barack Obama, have been making as much hay as possible out of Trayvon Martin’s death. Clearly, they think that this episode has ballot potential in November. I can see only one way in which it does have that potential, and I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, a few reasons why I think their ham-handed attempt to paint America as a racist nation will be a bust.

First, in terms of characterizing America as a racist nation, the fact that we have a black president kind of, sort of, a little bit, makes it stupid to try to paint a whole nation with the “racism” brush just because a big Hispanic man in a bad neighborhood pulled a gun on a big black guy in the same neighborhood. That’s true whether the killing was motivated by self-defense, insanity, or racism.

Second, people are beginning to catch on to the media’s games. In a way, it’s useful that the Martin killing followed on the heels of the Toulouse massacre. It’s a reminder that the media has a few templates for murder: When a black person dies at the hands of a non-black person, it’s a front-page racially motivated crime. When a non-black person dies at the hands of black person, it’s a bottom of page 27 story. And when a Muslim kills people while shouting “Allah is great,” Islam has nothing to do with it. Here, the media is sticking to its narrative with regard to both the Martin and Mohammed stories, despite pesky little details that put the lie to the media narratives.

Third, this was a one-person crime. Zimmerman didn’t belong to a White (or Hispanic) Supremacist movement. He wasn’t a corrupt small town sheriff. This wasn’t just another in a long line of racially motivated murders in the same community. It’s awfully hard to make a serious case for institutional American racism based on a sordid neighborhood dispute.

Fourth, crying “racism” is losing its impact. I read the other day (and I can’t remember where) that every time the President dips into the strategic oil reserves, the price of fuel drops. But here’s the kicker: With each successive release of oil from the reserves, the price drop has less staying power than it did during the previous release. Within an ever shorter time, fuel prices return to the price at which they were before the President used the reserves. In other words, the market is getting smarter at recognizing that the sudden influx of oil is a Band-Aid fix that doesn’t repair the deep problems with our oil supplies — so prices remain the same. With the racism cry, there’s a similar phenomenon: Americans are getting smarter at recognizing that the sudden screams of racism have nothing to do with the fact that America is, overall, a non-racist country, something that is true regardless of pockets of racism that may pop out here and there.

There you have it: four very good reasons why the bleats of “racism” are not going to convince Americans that they are still deeply racist and that they must reelect Barack Obama to continue to expiate their sin.

However, I’m not sure directing manifestly false insults at the America people is really going on here. I think the New Black Panthers gave the real game away when the announced a bounty on Zimmerman’s head (dead or alive.) What the race hustlers are telling Americans is that, if they don’t reelect Barack Obama, there’s going to be rioting on the streets, and that those who haven’t gotten with the pro-race program, can expect to have a bounty placed on their heads (dead or alive).

I had a lovely time last night at a reception on the Bonhomme Richard, and plan on writing about it later today. However, other work calls, so I thought I’d fill this space with recommendations for interesting stuff you may want to read. In no particular order:

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Mr. Katz, spend some time with Jesse Jackson. We’ve always known he’s an antisemite, but with the prospect of a similar thinking White House administration, he’s oozing out of the closet. As you read the article, keep in mind that Jackson is promising that an Obama administration will turn its back on the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, and will ally itself with some of the worst theocratic totalitarian dictatorships, not just in the region, not just in the world, but in the history of the world.